Articles by Herschel Smith

Shooting Illustrated:

To see how illustrative a small sampling might be, I decided to fire 100 rounds of the same ammo, out of the same rifle, during identical shooting and atmospheric conditions. My thinking was 100 carefully fired and recorded shots should provide a more practical picture of performance. The results changed the way I look at performance testing results, and might explain some of the misses we sometimes experience.

[ … ]

If we accept this 100-shot accuracy test as being representative, it’s clear simply firing and chronographing a couple three- or five-shot groups is not illustrative of how any rifle/load combination will perform over time. If you want to know what you can really expect from your rifle, every time you pull the trigger on a certain load, you need to evaluate more than one box of ammo.

In this article he deals only with those pseudo-random variables like velocity due to differences in loading, bullet weight, etc.  While it is well beyond the scope of this post, there are also things like stochastic vibration propagation along grain boundaries and crystalline structures of the gun barrel, which gets very complicated.  That subject cannot be given justice here.

When you fire a 3-shot group and claim that the gun shoots “__” MOA, or a 5-shot group and that the gun is capable of “__” MOA, that’s only marginally useful.  That data doesn’t meet the Central Limit Theorem (CLT) for convergence and presence of  at least three moments (a mean, fractional standard deviation of < 5% and a Variance of the Variance that is acceptable to an analyst).

But 3-shot and 5-shot groups is all you’ll ever see from a gun manufacturer.  Just realize that this is essentially meaningless and much more is needed to yield a standard distribution with proper variance.

Readers know that I not only open carry (sometimes) because I hate the feel of concealed carry and find it highly uncomfortable, but also because I believe we need to normalize this behavior.  As I’ve said before, I believe that opposition to open carry is about shaming gun owners.  I’ve also observed that “there is no prima facie reason that open carry cannot be legitimately for the reason of making a statement or for education purposes.”  I believe in open carry “For the peace, good and dignity of the country and the welfare of its people.”

If you do not choose to open carry for whatever reason, I’m okay with that.  I’m also okay with a gun carrier not feeling comfortable with doing something in an attempt to normalize acceptance.  I’m okay with these things as long as concealed carriers are okay with my choices and don’t criticize me for mine.  I do not open carry all of the time, but when I do, I expect acceptance from the gun community.  No, I demand acceptance from the gun community.

This all stipulates that open carriers don’t act like a jerk.  I was with an open carrier tonight waiting in a fast food line (I ended up getting a chicken salad), and he acted like a prick.  He was resting his hand on his firearm much of the time.  You’re as much of a goober if you touch your weapon as a cop is.  Get your damn hand off your gun.

He was dressed poorly and sloppily.  He then proceeded to act like a prick to the lady behind the counter about something, said hey to no one and offered no greetings, and as he sat with his family after he got his food, he blurted out obnoxious comments to his children wanting to know where they were going and what they were doing in a manner that everyone could hear him.  His poor daughter was simply going to the drink fountain.

If you openly carry, you are an ambassador for our cause.  Don’t be an ass.  Please.  Just stay home.  Dress appropriately, be nice, be respectful, observe proper rules (don’t play with your gun), and don’t leave retention straps hanging down from your holster.  Work on your holster to make it look like a gentleman is carrying a gun.

Do more than just look like a gentleman.  Become a gentleman.  Or stay home.

According to The Washington Post.

Juan Carlos Nazario was sitting on a lakeside bench waiting to play soccer when he heard the staccato popping of gunshots outside Louie’s On the Lake, a popular waterfront grill and pub. He ran to his car to get his gun and moved toward the sounds.

Bryan Whittle was driving with his wife, heading off for a Memorial Day weekend getaway, when he saw a commotion outside Louie’s. He thought someone might be drowning, so instead of turning his truck onto the highway, he barreled into the parking lot to offer help. As he jumped out, what he learned stunned him: There was an active shooter just yards away, and wounded victims were holed up in the restaurant’s bathroom.

Whittle, too, grabbed his gun.

In a matter of seconds, the two armed citizens became self-appointed protectors, moving to take up positions around the shooter, drawing their weapons and shouting for him to drop his. Time stretched and warped. There was an exchange of gunfire. The gunman was hit several times and fell. As Nazario and Whittle converged over the man to restrain him, police arrived. Unsure who was who, officers handcuffed all of the men and put them on the ground as the shooter bled out into the grass and died.

“I was just doing what I was supposed to do,” recalled Nazario, a former police officer who said he now works as a security guard, always has his gun in the car and usually carries it with him.

“I just reacted,” said Whittle, who has served for nearly 20 years in the Oklahoma Air National Guard and works for the Federal Aviation Administration. “There’s a guy with a gun. I’ve got a gun. Stop the threat.”

Though they were loaded into police cars and taken downtown for questioning, they were soon hailed as heroes. They were also called champions of Second Amendment rights, gun-carrying examples of why Oklahoma’s Republican governor should not have vetoed a bill two weeks earlier that would have eliminated the need for a permit and training to carry a gun in public.

Local police also praised Nazario and Whittle, saying their swift response ended what a police spokesman called “a very dangerous situation.”

But police also noted that armed citizens can complicate volatile situations. The first of 57 uniformed police officers arrived just a minute after the initial 911 calls and found a complex scene with multiple armed people and no clear sense of what had happened or who was responsible.

“We don’t want people to be vigilantes,” Bo Mathews, a spokesman for the Oklahoma City Police Department, said in a recent interview. “That’s why we have police officers.”

What?  We have police officers to be vigilantes, not other people?  Is that what’s being said here?

Probably not.  He probably means that we just cannot have ordinary people defending themselves – after all, that’s what the police are for.

Or not.  Yea, surely not.

Perhaps he meant that they didn’t want their officers having to think about the situation when they show up, and just shoot everybody who looks like they might have a firearm without observing proper rules for the use of force and thus have to worry about pedestrian things like backstop and proper target ID.

You can make up your own mind.  Maybe you’ll know what you’re talking about.  He sure as hell doesn’t.

Fox News:

In bodycam footage so stunning it could be mistaken for a Hollywood action flick, a Las Vegas Metro police officer chasing two men in an SUV is seen speeding through Sin City’s downtown while simultaneously shooting out his car’s front windshield and trading shots from his side window during a deadly gun battle.

The two suspects allegedly fled after a July 11 traffic stop conducted by cops investigating the murder of a man near a car wash, FOX5 Vegas reported.

The suspects traded more than 60 shots with police during the harrowing pursuit. The officer behind the wheel, William Umana, can be heard on video yelling “shots fired” multiple times. The chase ended when the suspects crashed into the wall of an elementary school.

Rene Nunez, 30, got out of the vehicle and tried to run upstairs into the school, but the door was locked, Las Vegas Metro police Assistant Sheriff Tim Kelly said.

Fidel Miranda, 23, moved toward the passenger seat of the SUV and started to move it back toward the officer’s cruiser. Police fired on Miranda and he later died at the scene. Nunez, who was also wounded, was arrested and is facing several felony charges, including murder, police said.

The shooting “paints a picture of the dangers these officers dealt with that day,” Kelly said.

“In my opinion, they show a level of bravery, professionalism, heroics, that we come to expect of our officers,” Kelly said. “The officer could have backed off but he didn’t, he stuck with that individual knowing what type of individual he was dealing with.”

So he’s a hero and pistolero.  But tell me after watching the video that he knew his backstop when he was shooting out the window while moving, and especially when he was shooting through the windshield of his patrol unit when the bullet could have been sent at virtually any angle.

Tell me the officer knew he wasn’t going to shoot some little girl or boy walking on the sidewalk.

Army Technology:

The US Army has awarded a new contract to aerospace and defence manufacturing firm Textron Systems to develop a functional prototype for the Next Generation Squad Automatic Rifle (NGSAR) programme.

Textron’s prototype could be used to replace the army’s light machine gun, the M249 squad automatic weapon (SAW), in the Brigade Combat Teams (BCT).

The scope of the contract involves the development and delivery of a new system demonstrator, which would be based on Textron Systems’ current portfolio of Cased-Telescoped (CT) weapons and ammunition.

The company intends to produce a high-velocity, magazine-fed system of an intermediate caliber.

A new automatic rifle with a new ammunition from a manufacturer who has no history making guns.  I’m sure this will work out well.

The Washington Free Beacon:

“He was an aggressive advocate, as attorney general, for gay marriage. He was an aggressive advocate demonstrating hostility to the First Amendment and political speech,” Cruz said in a committee meeting on Thursday. “Most significantly, he has been an aggressive advocate for undermining the Second Amendment.”

Cruz said he was particularly concerned by Bennett’s involvement with an amicus brief in the Heller case arguing that the Second Amendment was only intended to protect state militias from federal interference and should not apply to state laws. In Heller v. D.C., the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. In McDonald v. Chicago, the Court explicitly rejected the argument made in the brief Bennett signed on to by extending its conclusions in Heller to the states.

And yet the Senate confirmed him with 23 republican votes.  It didn’t have to be this way.  Trump could have nominated someone else.  I know about precedent finding a judge within the Ninth Circuit area for a nominee, but what do you say to gun owners in California who feel already beaten up and thrown down?

Do you tell them that Trump looked out for their interests and protected their rights?

Politico:

A new POLITICO/AARP poll shows Democrats ahead by 7 points in generic ballots in both the governor’s and Senate races. But to actually win statewide elections in this highly ethnically polarized state, Democrats will need to juice turnout among younger and especially older Latinos, who have tended to vote at lower rates than other voters in their age group — who also are trending ever more Republican. And not just in purplish Arizona: All across the U.S. Southwest, Latino voters could be the key to flipping Republican strongholds from red to blue, if only the Democratic Party can figure out how to get enough of them to the polls. Solve that mystery, and even a GOP-dominated state like Texas could suddenly be in play.

Why yes, I believe they are.  And say, what does all of this have to do with recognition of second amendment rights anyway?

Outdoor Life has an interesting article up on their tests of new hunting and long range rifles of 2018.  As I’ve come to expect for new chassis long range rifles now, they are all rather pricey.  But one thing that jumped out at me was the Savage M10 Stealth.

It’s an accurate rifle (0.5 MOA) and shoots 6mm Creedmoor, which is what most long range precision shooters are using now.  So if you want an accurate rifle out of the box for competition shooting without the process of building, this might be a good choice.

Foxnews:

A flip of a coin by Georgia cops determined a woman’s fate during a traffic stop in April, body camera footage showed.

The video showed Roswell police officers laughing as they used a coin-flip app to decide whether to detain Sarah Webb during a traffic stop, 11 Alive reported.

Officer Courtney Brown was heard asking Webb whether she knew how fast she was going. Webb apologized and said she was late for work, and Brown asked her to turn off the car and hand over her keys.

“The ground is wet and it’s been raining you’re going over 80 miles an hour on this type of a road. That’s reckless driving,” Brown said.

“I’m so sorry,” Webb replied.

Brown returned to her police cruiser to talk with fellow officers about whether to arrest Webb or just give her ticket.

“What do you think?” Kristee Wilson, a responding officer, was heard saying.

Brown said she “didn’t have speed detection,” but the other officer pointed out that the body camera recorded her cruiser’s speed, which would have shown how fast she was going to catch up to Webb.

Brown was then heard saying, “Hold on,” as she opens a coin-flip app on her phone. Wilson suggested that heads should mean arrest and tails should mean release. Brown agreee (sic) and flipped the coin in the app.

“A [arrest] head, R[release] tail,” Wilson said.

“OK,” Brown replied.

“This is tails, right?” Wilson asked.

“Yeah, so release?” Brown responded.

“23 [the police code for arrest],” Wilson replied.

“Michael Jordan?” Brown said while laughing. “All right, so I’ve got too fast for conditions, reckless…”

So one thing I’ll point out is that pointing to your own speedometer, or saying that you “had to drive so-and-so MPH to catch up” has no bearing on anything at all, and jurors who believe that are idiots.  Catching up to a car isn’t the same thing as driving the same speed as the other car.  I trust that I don’t have to perform calculus to demonstrate that.

Second, it appears as if this is the same thing we’ve seen before, i.e., hiring the lowest common denominator pathological morons to perform LEO duties.  In this case it’s a little different in that these are “mean girls” back in a high school lunch room who didn’t happen to like the person they stopped.

Justice in Amerika.

News from California.

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill by Assemblyman Tom Lackey allowing retired law enforcement officials to openly carry firearms.

The new law, Assembly Bill 1192, gives retired peace officers permission to openly carry firearms with a high-capacity magazine.

With the previous passage of the Safety For All Act of 2016, it was against state law for any person to carry a high-capacity firearm as of July 2017. The new legislation redefines “honorably retired” to “include a retired reserve officer who has met specified length of service requirements,” according to the bill by Lackey, R-Palmdale.

I wonder whether there is a cop anywhere in America that I would actually consider to be a “peace officer” rather than a cop or LEO.

Under California Penal Code 26350 it is a crime to openly carry a firearm, even if it is unloaded.  They can openly carry because they are special and you aren’t.

Understand?